Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Drop Nineteens: An oral history as told by four alumni

Three former Drop Nineteens meet up for the first time in many years 9/20/17L-R: Pete Koeplin, Steve Zimmerman, Justin Crosby

When it comes to classic shoegaze acts, few are more
overlooked than Boston’s Drop Nineteens. Though they were one of the first American bands to gain
momentum within the scene, both their style and lineup went through a series of
distinctive revisions in their rather short career before unceremoniously
disintegrating. Granted, they’ve
ranked on certain best-of-the-genre lists and even still enjoy occasional college radio airplay, but in this era of deluxe reissues and critical reappraisal, their story has remained largely untold. As such, Drop Nineteens
detectivism was among my first priorities upon arrival in Boston this year. With
the Autumnal Equinox nearing, the trail of clues led me to Jamaica
Plain’s Midway Cafe, where I was joined by bassist Steve Zimmerman, a founding
member, as well as drummer Pete Koeplin and lead guitarist Justin Crosby from
the group’s later period. At a corner table, we discussed the Drop Nineteens
experience at length before Koeplin took the stage with The Chris Brokaw Rock Band. Afterwards, I reached original drummer Chris Roof, who was kind enough to
shed some additional light on their earlier days. From these discussions,
Square Cotton Candy is honored to present, for the first time, the Drop
Nineteens story in depth and in [most of] their own words.

Formed in 1990 as In April Rain, the band coalesced under
the leadership of Boston University student Greg Ackell. Roof recalls, “ I played in a couple of bands with Greg
when we were in high school at Northfield Mount Hermon School. I don’t think
either of us realized we were both going to BU, but once we bumped into each
other we talked about putting another band together, and we ultimately did,
first rehearsing in my dormitory’s basement music room, then the basement of a
frat house in Allston.” Even though just starting out at college, Ackell had
conditioned himself an A student of new wave. “He was the person who came from
boarding school, had played in bands, had done covers, really knew New Order,
the Smiths, the Cure, had some vision about songs that he wanted to write that
were his own originals, and could lead the thing at that young age,” observed
Zimmerman, who along with lead guitarist Motohiro Yasue, completed the first
incarnation of the band’s lineup.

At this early stage in their career, developing their sound
and repertoire was undertaken organically, without the pressure of live
appearances. “Somebody would come in with a riff, than we’d work it for
hours/days/weeks until it began to turn into an actual song,” explained Roof. From this experimentation came a sound
that mixed the atmospheric guitar layers and co-ed harmonies exemplified by
predecessors My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, as well as distinctive lead
guitar hooks reminiscent of classic 80’s dance-pop. Though still a four-piece,
additional vocal duties on early recordings were handled by then-part-timer
Paula Kelley, who was classically trained and shared an affinity for top 40
radio with Ackell.

Their second demo (and first as Drop Nineteens), Mayfield, served to elevate the band’s
out of town profile while still being completely unknown at home. British publications like New Musical Express were impressed, and
over the state border in New Hampshire, the buzz also finally landed Drop
Nineteens live bookings. Roof recollected, “I believe [the first gig] was at
UNH. Their radio station had picked up a copy of one of our demos and there
seemed to be a bunch of interest there. The dark, live pictures that ended up [inside
of the CD insert for] Delaware were
taken at that show by my friend Turlock.”

After attracting some positive attention from the press and
getting a taste of the stage, the band was ready to record again. Zimmerman
explained, “with the momentum we decided it was great to get in for the Summer Session, we called it, to do four
quick songs. We went into the room with the intention of writing the EP as
quickly as possible, and we felt like we had solid enough ideas to rent the
equipment, and then like sort of isolate ourselves, and lay down the basics of
what we had come out with, and then finish them up and get it out. So the Summer Session, which had what’s really
called ‘Damom’, not Damon, ‘Song For JJ’, 'Soapland', and ‘Back in Our Old Bed’...
it’s not part of Mayfield [as is
often mis-cannonized by fans and bootleggers alike]. There was actually a
continuation, to try to maintain interest in the press. Show that we’re still
writing, creative, and evolving, ‘cause that sound was even more washed out,
even less immediate than the Mayfield
demos.”

The Summer Session
took Drop Nineteens’ signature blend in a new direction, but for reasons now
forgotten, a temporary vocal vacancy needed to be filled. This responsibility
ultimately landed with a mononymous Hannah. “I think Hannah knew Greg from
someplace but am not sure…Paula was never formally in the band when we recorded
[The In April Rain and Mayfield demos]. I’m not sure why she
didn’t do the [Summer Session], but
once we started talking with record companies she formally joined us,”
reflected Roof.

Industry attention gradually built up over the approximately
three months following the Summer Session, with the live show becoming
increasingly important. Roof continued, “the talk with record companies really
picked up after we played our own show as a part of the CMG festival in what
was literally the meat packing district back then in NYC. I had to do sound and
play the drums. I’m sure it sounded interesting, but it was a pure and raw
show, which many of them were.”

During this time, a few labels came and went from the negotiating
table. Zimmerman reveals, “Cherry Red was the very, very first label to even
offer, to put something on the table and say we’d like to do an album. Theirs
was a tiny little deal, but Cherry Red was the first one to really sort of
believe in us. We didn’t go with them, but there was quite a number of months
where we were in talks with them, but then the other conversations started with
other labels, and Caroline was a great fit for us.”

A sub-brand of Virgin, Caroline was, as put by eventual
member Crosby, “a packaging deal essentially. It was an image deal to test
bands out for viability.” In the early ‘90s, Caroline had built its reputation
as a seal of quality for the exploding alternative rock scene, boasting releases
by leading acts like Smashing Pumpkins, Primus, and John Spencer Blues
Explosion. Later addition Koeplin reminisced, “when you were going to like TapeWorld and looking for cassettes and records Caroline was like, you’d go and you
look at like Caroline records, [and say] ok I’ll give that a shot.”

On catching Caroline’s attention, Zimmerman remembered,
“when we played with Chapterhouse they were there for the last few minutes, and
it was our cover [of Madonna’s] ‘Angel’ that they saw. That’s all they saw, but,
sometimes things go really well and that song that night sounded good. We were
very manic. Greg was bleeding from the strumming from the show. So it was a
real scene, bumping into everyone, but all of the starts and stops, and the wah
that Moto was doing and whatnot. Everything was flawless, for that few minutes
that Virgin happened to show up. So [it] made an impression, and so they
contacted us more after. It didn’t become a frenzy, but it was enough for them
to say, ok, we’ve heard about this, we showed up in time, we caught a little
bit, and it started the conversation.”

With a deal in hand from Caroline, the band had a few
potential routes to choose from for their debut. After all, there was already
an album’s worth of quality songs on the promo-only demos that could have
easily been redone in hi-fi, but creative complacency was never part of the
equation for the now-quintet. As such, a complete refresh of material became
the preferred option. On this juncture, Zimmerman elaborated, “there was so
much backlash in the press about shoegaze and the scene that celebrates itself
at that time, and because our interests were growing, we deliberately had a
meeting, sat down and said how do we all feel about scrapping everything that
we’ve made, which we know was a lot of to get to this point, but now that we do
have a developmental deal, we are going to make an album. Write another all new
album, and the way that [the Summer Session] was so fast to just crank out, those
four songs and put them down, we had a lot of confidence that, sure, we’ll make
an album. And so we set out to write songs of Delaware, wanting them to be more immediate, a little bit more of
our own sound, ‘cause the [Summer Session] was even more Slowdive than maybe Drop
Nineteens.”

To record their debut full-length, Delaware, the band entered Boston’s Downtown Recorders while still
juggling school commitments. “A little bit hinged on our college schedule, so
we were fortunate enough that we had some support from families to be in college,
and we knew that if we weren’t in college, we wouldn’t have that same support.
So we did classes and wrote, and then if we, when were touring and recording,
that that was part of the record company’s momentum, or contract let’s say”,
explained Zimmerman. “So we sort of planned it so that it could be one or the
other, cause we were too young to really…we didn’t wanna’ get jobs yet and we
were too young to support.”

Released in 1992, Delaware
was as diverse as it was mysterious, featuring eccentricities like “Ease It Halen”,
whose lyrics were constructed from Van Halen song titles, the epic soundscape-sandwiched-soliloquy
“Kick The Tragedy”, subdued acoustic numbers like “Baby Wonder’s Gone” and “My
Aquarium”, their winning Madonna cover “Angel”, and lead single “Winona”, which
gained some traction on MTV’s 120 Minutes program. Like so many discs of
artistic merit, Delaware was well
received overseas, but it didn’t do much to warm Drop Nineteens’ peers up to
them.

Regarding their standing in the US scene, Kelley commented toExcellent Online in 2002, “because we circumvented the system of playing around
at local clubs before "making it" we were rather resented by bands
who were doing that.” Still, they were invited to play SubPop’s now legendary Vermonstress festival in Burlingtion, VT that year alongside esteemed contemporaries such as
Velocity Girl and Beat Happening. As Roof remembers it, “[though I] do recall
being intimidated to play at Vermonstress…it did really pump us up, and we
played one of the most raw and in your face shows I remember that night.”For Drop Nineteens, the Vermonstress
experience stood somewhere between playing packed crowds in New York City and
nearly vacant halls in Ohio during the Delaware era, but the highs and lows would
become much more pronounced afteranother
visit to the studio.

“The record company said it would be good to have more music
out before touring. We also wanted to show how much our sound had evolved at
that time,” commented Roof on the Your
Aquarium EP, which contained a souped up version of the Delaware track and the group’s take on Barry
Manilow’s smash “Mandy”.With the
short new disc ready, Drop Nineteens headed to Europe.

As a group, life on the road was rocky and being so far from
their home continent seemed to aggravate mounting tensions. Roof explained, “we
did band things together, and a couple of social things, but not many. Greg and
Steve were tight for a bit. On the road Greg and Steve shared rooms and Moto
and I did.” However, for as much as Kelley enjoyed the traveling and performing
aspects of touring, she found this band’s European tour to be exasperating, and
before long she had to confront the creative and personal disagreements she
experienced. With the prospect of a US trek to follow, Kelley announced she
would leave the band at the conclusion of the tour.

Her departure would serve to initiate a radical
transformation in the group as a whole. To fill the void left by her absence,
Megan Gilbert was brought in as her successor. Almost immediately though, Roof
would also make his exit and a new drummer would be sought.Enter Koeplin, who recalled, “I
actually met Greg through a friend of mine, Phil Mastrellis, who was a
skateboard buddy of mine in high school. He’s also mentioned in Kick the
Tragedy when it’s like, ‘fucking Phil is off…’. That’s my friend, Phil Mastrellis…my
late friend. He died in ’95, but Greg came and saw me play with my band
Flipside back in high school, in my basement. He was visiting Phil, and [they]
came into my basement, and Greg had, you know, Rayban glasses on or something,
and watched me play for literally like, I don’t know, a minute; like 30
seconds, and then left. And then I got a call a year later from Phil saying ‘dude,
uh Greg’s looking for a drummer. I don’t know, opportunity might be knocking.’”

For Koeplin the prospect of hitting the road with a
professional band seemed more enticing than hitting the books at UMass Amherst
and worth taking a serious chance on. He continued, “Greg called me. I talked
to him; he said ‘we’re gonna’ be recording a new record. We’re gonna’ be doin’
like a tour, a national or international tour. It was something, and so why
don’t you go to the record store and find Delaware
and the Your Aquarium EP, and listen
to ‘em and come to Boston in a week and audition?’ And I was like, ‘well ok
then’. So I went and I found the records and I listened to ‘em and I went in
and that’s where I met Steve, Greg, and Megan? Was it? Cause I never actually
met Paula Kelley. I still haven’t met her to this day. I don’t know if it was
Megan or just [Steve], and Greg, and myself, and we just ran through a bunch of
stuff...and maybe Moto might have been there. I ended up doing two shows with
Moto, but I got that call like a week later saying we want you to join the
band. We’re gonna’ be opening for Smashing Pumpkins in two weeks, and for me it
was like the dream call, like are you kidding me? ‘Mom and dad, I think I’m gonna’
leave school to play in this band. I think its gonna’ be something serious.’ And
that’s exactly what happened. Two weeks later, we were driving down [to
Atlanta] in the blizzard of 1993 to play with Smashing Pumpkins.”

For the time being, Yasue still held down lead guitar duties
next to the two new members, though it’s possible that he may have been just
sticking around a little longer to tie his show count with Roof and Kelley. Such
conjecture is based on Roof’s clarification (regarding if he ever played live
between the Kelley and Gilbert eras) that “the only time we played [as] a
four-piece was when Moto wasn’t allowed to cross the US-Canada border so we put
him on a bus to Detroit, and we played Montreal and Toronto without him.” In
any case, his time with Drop Nineteens ended without any shortage of adventure.

Zimmerman described the trip as
“that storm that that movie [The Perfect Storm] is based on, where the whole
eastern seaboard just got pummeled. So even down in Atlanta, I remember being
in Atlanta and nobody knew what to do.” Koeplin added, “it was a ghost town.
Yeah, we heard on the radio, ‘The Smashing Pumpkins show has been cancelled
tonight and we don’t know where Drop Nineteens are’, and we were like an hour
outside of Atlanta and going like ‘we’re there, we’re coming! We’re right
here!’ It happened though. It was the next night, right? They just put it off
for a night and we stayed like two nights in Atlanta.”

Upon returning from their blizzard
journey, Yasue parted ways with Drop Nineteens and the new incarnation of the
band was about to leap into a new writing cycle with a new lead guitarist. As Koeplin
remembers it, “when I first joined, it was learning Delaware and Your Aquarium,
but it was immediately like, we got a practice space, which was underneath
Jillian’s on Lansdowne street, and it was the four of us. I mean after Moto;
after they told me Moto was gone I was like, ‘well my cousin Justin can play
guitar.’”

Crosby turned up about a month
after the Smashing Pumpkins gig, having done his due diligence with the Delaware album. On his initial
experience, Crosby explains, “I was under the impression that that’s what we
were going for, so I was surprised when we started writing so different, but my
entrance in was kind of right into the writing phase for National Coma. So cognitively it seemed like it didn’t make sense
to me, but I mean it was just, you know, it was just sort of adaptive to [Ackell].
Ironically, I listen to Delaware a
lot and I was quite a fan of that album before starting the writing process.”

Whereas Delaware was inspired from Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, the
writing of National Coma appeared to take more
cues from the modular, work-tape approach of avant-garde bluesman Captain Beefheart.
Koeplin elaborates: “The four of us had a practice space and Greg [would come]
in with a part, and he would say, he was like ‘I got this’, and he would play
something, and we would record onto like a boombox. Greg would come in with a part, then Steve would know
something too, and I would try a beat to it, and then Justin would try
something. And we’d record that
part, and then it would be like ok, here’s the next part, and we would do
things in pieces, to the point where, by the time we got to Syntex Studios to
record, Greg was on the box going, ‘let’s try this part’, and fast forward, and
he would go ‘and this part’, and we’d put them together and make a song. Which
is, to me, was kind of like, maybe why National
Coma sounded [exactly like that].”

“Cuban” was the first tune worked
out for National Coma, which garnered
a mixed reaction from both Caroline’s office and Koeplin’s parents alike. He
joked that “after that BAM BAM, you know I think that no one knew quite what to
do with that.” Zimmerman, however, maintained that the label saw promise in the
group’s new direction. “Caroline liked that one. They were like woah. So they
were very excited to hear what was next, cause it had some of the classic
elements of Greg and Megan’s vocals, the male/female vocals. It didn’t sound
like shoegaze anymore but it had a softness to it and it sounded like it could
be an evolution and that other songs that were coming behind this, which the
other songs were nothing like it.”

The label's puzzlement grew as more
songs were submitted. “They were really excited about it, and then they got the
rest of the album. After a while our A&R guy said, ‘I think it actually
might be genius’, but they had a real hard time figuring how to market this.
What do we do with this?” reflected Zimmerman. “It was always like, well what’s
the single? And the closest we could even get to an answer was ‘The Dead’. [Note:
“Limp” was ultimately issued as the single from National Coma.] We just took a left turn. We said no to some
producers. We looked at some
producers. They actually asked Jimmy Destri from Blondie, the keyboardist. We
met with him, sat with him, and were like, nah we’re not sure, we’re not sure
if we’re really gonna’ comingle so well. And we really wanted J. Mascis, but he
was busy. He had heard about it, he did have interest, but he couldn’t, the
time, the schedule wouldn’t work, so we just did it ourselves”.

The final product that was National Coma reflected the breadth of
the revamped band’s collective personality, but didn’t exactly captivate Delaware’s audience anew. As Zimmerman
posited, “the demos did great, Delaware
did great, and so when you always do great you don’t think that people who want
to listen to what you do aren’t gonna’ accept the next thing, even if it’s a
turn. And when you’re that age, also, you don’t necessarily understand sound.
What it was that might be your trademark, your own brand, your trademark and
your sound, and think that if you completely crumble it and make a different
thing what that might mean to the audience or to the company who has decided
that they’re gonna’ make an album with you based on a certain sound. It’s a
pretty interesting thing.”

Now having a pair of mismatched
sounding records in stores, Drop Nineteens hit the road with in support of National Coma with a setlist Koeplin
likened to shuffling the deck. “ I don’t know if I could go back and listen to
that set now, what that must’ve sounded like… to go from ‘Winona’ to ‘7/8’,”
opined Zimmerman. However, much like the Delaware-era
tours, show attendance sharply contrasted from show to show. Koeplin recalls,
“when we were playing in the UK… until we played the Reading Festival, we were
on that stage and playing the songs. By that time, I remember people jumping
around and dancing, but there were a lot of club shows where there was like 20
feet of nobody, and a crowd of people watching doing absolutely nothing but
just watching. And I didn’t know if it was because it was…such a divergent
thing. Like, they couldn’t put A and B together and figure out like how is this
gonna’ work together. It was still like trying to figure it out, you know.”

Also like the prior version of the
band’s time on the road, moments joking around punctuated the season’s rising
tensions. Koeplin, for example, relayed a time when, “we wrote Radiohead sucks
on the wall at one point, at one of the clubs,” with Crosby adding, “[that] the
irony is, I remember we were at the Reading Festival and we were all knocking
Radiohead, like we were knocking Creep….and here they are, one of my favorite
bands, like over time, oh my God they evolved into this behemoth of something
authentic. And there, that just shows you the maturity level I was at for
sure.” However, even incidents
like this though proved unable to preserve the National Coma-era Drop Nineteens as they were.

Looking back on that incarnation’s
unraveling, Crosby stated, “it just kind of very quickly ramped up to that, and
I remember there was always some tension there, but it was very abrupt.” Koeplin
elaborated that “no one got fired, but at the immediate aftermath of the
National Coma tour, which ended like Christmas, December of [1993], Greg’s like
, ‘hey, I’m flying everybody home’, and we were like thank God. So we all went home. I got a call from
Greg in like January, and it said that, ‘I don’t think that Steve or Meg, or
Megan are gonna’ come back. I’m not sure about Justin,’ and I think he asked me
do you wanna’ like, who do you know that, like, would wanna’ play? Like, what
do you wanna’ do? And, I was like, well, you know, without any hint of like, like
I’m so sorry that’s happening, which is what it would be now, I was like, well,
I know my friend Craig Rich plays bass, and I, so we, there was a couple
formations of the band that came, and we demoed a few things.”

The post-National Coma demos, pitched to London/Polygram, nearly earned the
band a new major label deal but, in Koeplin’s view, “the wheels were falling
off by then.” Some creative fire remained in their stove, but as Crosby put it,
“it felt like it was musical chairs, where it was just so like rapid where it
was like pace kept picking, and then boom, suddenly [Steve’s] gone, Megan’s
gone and it was just…and you know, I’m in because they were replacing, it was
like, it was kind of like The Cure [with] the ever-rotating cast of characters,
which is unfortunate. It just seems like there was nothing to latch onto that I
could understand from an authentic perspective.”

Crosby also
attributes a lack of outside involvement to the ultimate halt Drop Nineteens
met, stating, “it wasn’t one of those bands where you had your, say 40% of your
gigs were DIY, where you were calling when you had like off time and setting up
weird little tours around the state, like, and … I don’t know if that was
unique to our situation, where bands, you know, where they’re insulated by a
label. ‘Cause it’s interesting to see that I feel like that was another thing
that would have helped glue everything together, if there was this ethic of
just like keeping us playing and,
you know, and gigging when we were in between albums. You know, like that’s
sort of really is the heart and soul of what keeps a band alive when they’re
not recording. I think the problem was we never had someone actively on the
periphery keeping us glued together.” Contemplating how the band might have
been able to survive, Zimmerman added, “if there was a producer involved or a
manager who’s very strong and just said there’s some differences, there’s some
things going on here. I don’t know if you should still be Drop Nineteens, but I
see something here, let’s take this and now go make another album. We’re gonna’
rebrand it maybe. We’re gonna’ do something else.”

Such a rebrand
did eventually occur, with Ackel, Koeplin, and Rich briefly continuing as
Fidel. A four-piece also including keyboardist Chris Coates, Fidel recorded a full length album and played a few live dates,
but the record only made to bootleg status. Koeplin relayed, “we played Mama Kin's before Mama Kin's closed, and I, and I mean, I think Greg is a, God bless him man,
he’s a creature of like, wants to like, he, when he’s into something, when he’s
into the project and he’s interested in it he does it for all it’s worth, but
the minute that it kind of like, maybe isn’t going to be worth it to a certain,
or he doesn’t see it in the long haul, like that band just kind of fizzled out.
We practiced, you know, we worked hard, but then like most bands, it’s like, it
just came to a point where we just didn’t
practice anymore, and if no one’s gonna’ book a show like, who’s gonna’
do what? You know, it’s bands just kinda’ come and go if you’re not like
actively, if no one’s actively booking the band, and saying we’re practicing
tomorrow, you know, how does a band survive?”

Before long,
even Fidel ceased activity and, as the mid-‘90s progressed into the late 90s,
the Drop Nineteens alumni all moved on with their lives. Starting with Hot Rod,
Kelley built a substantial music career on her own terms, eventually founding
the Paula Kelley Orchestra before pursuing a career in television and film composition in LA. Crosby too carved out a niche composing, with his work appearing in household name media ranging from Dexter to WWE. Roof recounts
having, “played with a few friends’ bands for a while after [leaving Drop
Nineteens] and [doing] sound for others as well, including briefly at Club Passim in Harvard Square.” Koeplin continued active involvement in the local
music scene, being the longtime drummer for rockers Kahoots (among other acts),
while Gilbert resurfaced circa 2010 as part of New York duo La Marcha.

In recent times,
the nostalgia cycle has made the shoegaze reunion scene a thriving one, but
Drop Nineteens have remained one of the few conspicuous absentees. Surprisingly,
this isn’t for lack of effort. Zimmerman explained, “I remember [in Summer
2001] where we sat and I remember talking about [making a new Drop Nineteens
album]. Paula had momentum with things that she was doing, and we just couldn’t
come to an agreement on it. And then that was it. I think we had one practice
session, Greg and I, and then he called me the next day and said we’re not gonna’
do this. So we could have called Megan, we could have looked for other people,
um, we hadn’t actually reformed the band or done anything yet, but it was just
a thought, and that started with, well we know the sound of Greg and Paula’s
voice together is what, is desirable, at least under that name of Drop
Nineteens. And when that was already, when she was already saying I’m gonna’
pass on that and it wasn’t right for her, it just didn’t seem like there was a
point.” Fast-forward to 2017 and the proposition still isn’t unanimous, as
Crosby stated, “I don’t know if I’m, I think I’m too old for it.” Koeplin, on
the other hand, is more enthusiastic. While noting that Ackell is “generally
not too interested in rehashing the past”, he persists, “I’ll always ask for a
reunion, and I will never get one, but it’s ok. I’ll keep asking. I think I
asked Steve last week…[but]it’s gotta’ be all or nothing. I mean Greg’s gotta’
be involved if that’s gonna’ happen.” And so, as it stands, Boston’s Drop
Nineteens remain strictly a phenomenon of the past, but at least their name is
still an available vanity plate!